3. Priestley
PRIESTLEY
By the time my first class rolls around, I’ve made a good start on the essential reading list and learned everything I can about Professor Moreno.
She may be a slightly tougher nut to crack than the male professors who already know and adore my father, but I’m not worried.
I have the titles and main points of all her research papers memorized.
Her career highlights and awards I can bring up in case of emergency.
So when I enter the classroom, a few minutes early—too early and that could piss the professor off—I’m armed to the teeth with information and ready for anything.
I’m only caught slightly off-guard when the first face I see is the guy from the library.
The fact I won that particular bout comforts me enough to keep the smile on my face. His scowl warms me. It tells me I’m getting under his skin. A distracted rival is always a useless one.
I have the book in question in my bag, along with some of Professor Moreno’s published texts. It won’t hurt to have one or two in the stack sitting on my desk. Ass kissing is a specialty of mine and I’ve perfected it to a fine—and discreet—art.
I make sure to sit right in Boston boy’s eyeline.
Enough so I can catch a glimpse of him without turning my head—he seems like the kind who might stoop to a spit ball in extreme circumstances.
Not enough to let him distract me. I’m the distraction here.
Just to piss him off, I take the hefty Zvi, Kane and Alan book on investments and portfolio management out and drop it onto the desk with a satisfying slap.
I wait for him to say something, to make some comment on the book.
Maybe even ask if I’m done with it yet—spoiler alert: I’m not.
But he’s silent as we wait for class to start.
There’s nothing but the loud ticking of the clock on the wall to punctuate the silence.
I flip through my books, take my laptop out, and arrange my stationary on the desk.
I anticipate that Professor Moreno will be impressed when she comes in and I’m the first person she sees.
Ready and willing and front of the class.
Boston is sitting three rows back. That’s no way to get noticed by the professor. As a grad student, he ought to know that.
The door opens. I sit up a little straighter, but it’s just another student, blustering in carrying a stack of books. He looks shabby and his glasses are skewed. I sigh with relief as I immediately dismiss him as a worthy opponent, just as I dismissed the Neanderthal sitting behind me.
Back in the library, I picked up on the Boston accent.
I’m good at noticing these things. Details are important.
Despite being neatly dressed, it was obvious that he was awed by his surroundings.
I watched him for a moment before swooping in to take the book.
If he hadn’t been so busy pawing over the first editions, he would have found the book before I did.
That quip about the DDS was just to throw him off.
He obviously knew his way around a library.
Still, he’s not a serious opponent. My instincts tell me he didn’t get his degree at an Ivy League school, and I’m not sure what financial diversity quota brought him here now, but he doesn’t belong, just as he doesn’t belong in my father’s internship. That internship is mine.
The rest of the students flood into the room and take their seats. A couple take a front row seat, though none dare to take a chair too close to mine. I’m not surprised. My old fraternity VP, Nathan, told me I have ‘resting bitch face.’
Finally, Professor Moreno walks in.
Her quietly authoritative air and cold beauty remind me of my mother. Something catches in my throat, a fear I don’t even feel around my father.
Her eyes scan the room, landing on no one in particular.
I brush a hand through my hair to make sure it’s still neat, hoping she’ll notice me on the next go round.
She takes some notes from her briefcase and straightens them on the desk before addressing the room.
“Hello, and welcome, grad students.”
When she smiles, that cold demeanor fades into something much warmer and I see that it’s practiced—that authority. It isn’t something she’s always known she has. Hers is a power that was earned rather than given.
She begins a speech about the privileged position we’re in—a speech I’ve heard a thousand times before, though it sounds different coming from her.
When her gaze finally lands on me for longer than a second, I swear her lip curls. It’s a discreet gesture, and I could be—God, I hope I am—imagining it. But she certainly isn’t gazing at me in admiration.
She finishes her speech and slips behind the desk for a moment, resting her hands on the polished wood.
“Any questions?”
The room is still as she waits. The shabby guy with glasses sitting two seats down breathes too heavily through blocked sinuses.
“Good,” she says when no one has anything.
As she begins to write something on the board, a familiar, overwhelming desire to please starts to bubble up. This woman is impressive, but she isn’t immediately impressed by me. I need to rectify that. She could be the only thing standing between me and that internship.
It takes me a moment to focus on what she’s writing. I pick my pen up to take notes, but she’s just putting numbers down one side of the board.
“The world of finance is a highly competitive one,” she says. I’m sure she knows this isn’t news to us at this point. “I thought it might be fun if we had a little competition.” She gives us a sly smile.
My heart rate spikes at the word said out loud. Everything in life is a competition. Only, people don’t usually explicitly state it.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard that the top first-year student in this program earns an internship with Rosenthal Asset Management and that anyone who interns at RAM goes on to have a lucrative career.” I feel like she’s purposefully averting her gaze from mine.
She starts to write names on the list, starting from the bottom and working her way up. “Based partially on the results from your math exam during the application process, I will be placing you on a preliminary leaderboard.”
My heart pounds in my ears, but I assure myself I will be top of that list. My math is excellent and I know I’ve scored one hundred on that test, as I have every math test since the second grade.
There is nothing better than one hundred percent, no matter how much gym bros like to give everything one hundred and ten.
But surely more than one person scored a hundred on a math test? It’s math. There are only right and wrong answers. We’re Ivy League grad students. If we can’t ace a math test, we might as well go home.
“The leaderboard is highly subject to change, of course,” Professor Moreno says, her back turned as she writes out more names. I’m sure the guy closest to me shrinks as she moves to the side and the names on the bottom of the list become visible.
“And this is not based solely on test scores.”
Fuck.
“I’ve been through each and every one of your academic transcripts. I’ve read up on your extracurriculars.”
She adds a name in the number five spot, crossing the T with a little flourish before turning around. She’s wearing a wolfish grin as she turns to face us. “I’ve even Googled you.”
I swear someone gulps at that.
She glances over us all before returning to the board to add the last five names. This time before she turns her back, her gaze flickers over me without expression.
Surely it can only be a good thing, her looking us up? Taking everything into consideration. My extracurriculars are astounding. What’s better than being president of a fraternity? Captain of a championship-winning tennis team?
My confidence holds as she writes someone else’s name in the number five, then the number four spot.
I pass the tingling in the palms of my hands off as anticipation, not nerves as she fills in the number three spot. Alice Liang. Sorry Alice, the number one spot belongs to me.
I’m wondering who the number two spot will go to when I notice her writing a P. Then a small r. Surely not …
Priestley Rosenthal.
She writes the family name with emphasis. I stare.
It can’t be. Who has a better academic transcript than I do? I wasn’t aware someone had bred Albert Einstein with Marie Curie to create the perfect academic.
Professor Moreno pauses with her pen poised next to the number one spot.
“Is it Will or William?” she asks the room, her back still turned to us.
There’s a pause before Will-or-William answers.
Someone clears their throat. I turn toward the sound and am horrified to find the Neanderthal from the library opening his mouth to speak.
“It’s just Will, Professor.”
I’m still staring at ‘Will’ as Professor Moreno’s marker squeaks on the board.
Will’s lips quirk in a small smile before I turn back to the front of the classroom to make sure I got this right. Am I having some sort of fever dream? Does that leaderboard say that Priestley Rosenthal is number two? And at number one is someone named Will O’Reilly? Who the fuck is Will O’Reilly?
I can barely focus during the rest of class. From the snippets I do catch, it’s just an introductory class anyway. Nothing I can’t find in those books I plan on keeping for as long as possible, just so Will O’Reilly can’t get grubby his hands on them.
Professor Moreno calls time on the lesson after assigning us a preliminary peer review.
Unfortunately, the article she wants us to review can be found on the Princeton e-library, so Will O’Reilly won’t be automatically disadvantaged in that regard.
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter, my peer review will still be better than his.
I wait while the rest of the students file out of the room.